


Next time it'll be perfect

by manic_intent



Category: Marvel Movieverse - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-09
Updated: 2010-09-09
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:49:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony concludes that Logan is cheating on him with an AI.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next time it'll be perfect

**Author's Note:**

> Just realized I forgot to link the previous fic to this: 
> 
> Depth Perception:  
> http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/151731.html  
> http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/152182.html  
> http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/152370.html  
> http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/152591.html  
> http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/153539.html

  
  
  
  
**Entry tags:**  
|    
[fic](http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [marvel](http://manic-intent.livejournal.com/tag/marvel)  
  
---|---  
  
_**[fic] Next time it'll be Perfect [1/1]**_  
**Title:** Next time it'll be perfect [1/1]  
**Fandom:** Marvel Movieverse  
**Rating:** R+  
**Pairing:** Logan x Tony  
**A/N:** Post Depth Perception, one-shot.  Living with Tony Stark can be very trying.

 

[A/N: Robert Downey Jr and Hugh Jackman? Seriously, guys. :3 ]

 

Next time it’ll be Perfect

I

 

“Mating season is in the summer,” Tony declared, and when the bottle of beer only paused for a fraction of a second before it continued en-route to Logan’s mouth, elaborated, “For wolverines.”

 

Logan rolled his eyes, and then crossed his feet on the Bloch coffee table overlooking the sea.  The cliffside house had been restored, and at some point, Logan had (more or less) moved in, in drips and drabs small enough that Tony hadn’t noticed, up until one day he’d realized, all at once, that the hi fi set had a stack of CDs that he didn’t recognize; one of the walk in wardrobes in the guest room was a quarter filled with shirts and jeans and bomber jackets; a spare storeroom had a punching bag dangling in a corner, and he’d looked up from configuring his repulsors once to see a battered old Harley sitting pretty between the Koenigsegg CCX and the Bugatti Veyron.

 

Logan had walked in on Tony and Dummy tinkering with the Harley’s pushrod, his hands greasy to the elbows in engine oil, and sometime later Tony vaguely remembered being grateful that the car that had suffered the suspicious dent to its hood alongside grease stains and worse had been the Koenigsegg.  Good times.

 

“I can smell ya from here.  Stop it.”

 

“I know, I know.” Tony crouched protectively over his laptop in the loveseat facing the LCD television set, tabbing between a research journal on biometric nanotech weaponry, the latest, somewhat unflattering Vanity Fair article on himself, a livestream of schematics of the latest Stark Industries smartphone and Wikipedia.  He liked Wikipedia.  Sometimes, he even edited his own article.  “I’m bored.”

 

Logan ignored him.  Not for the first time, Tony rather regretted introducing the mutant to JARVIS and providing him with direct access via portable holopad tech (patents pending).  Before Logan, in a half-circle, flickered a stream of photographs from at least three different wars that Tony could recognize.  Four photographs had been set aside; two grainy ones of what looked like Vietnam, one black and white of trenches in the first World War, and another sepia toned one of something unrecognizable in Rwanda. 

 

“ _Loading trove eight point nine point six, storage: one thousand sixty five._ ” JARVIS said, from the holopad balanced on Logan’s knees.  “ _Corruption on seventy six point five per cent.  Manual scan recommended_.”

 

“Help me out on the rest.”

 

Tony watched Logan’s callused, thick fingers select images, widen them with a flick of thumb and forefinger, then discard them, the glass of beer forgotten beside his shoes.  The fingers, Tony recalled, internalizing a sigh, were often better used in other activities involving certain billionaire playboys, bed optional.  Sadly, said activities tended to be rarer of late, ever since JARVIS had hacked into the storage feed of some military library run by a group of volunteer veterans and their family in the middle of buttfuck nowhere in Alabama and had uploaded a fuckton of war photographs.

 

Around that point, daily, amazing sex had promptly become about three or so times a week, and then when Logan had found the first photograph of himself, posing with a group of sober soldiers in a partially flooded trench just before what looked like No Man’s Land, it had stopped altogether.

 

 _Dear God_ , Tony thought, glaring back at his laptop.  _Logan is cheating on me with JARVIS_.  It was a terrible and pathetic contemplation.

 

Setting the laptop on the loveseat, Tony padded to the stairwell leading to his lab.  As far as he could tell (not that he was checking), Logan didn’t even look up.  Punching in the codes with a little more fervor than the touchpad really required, Tony suited up, swore at JARVIS when it advised Tony of the wind shear and the outside temperature, and waited impatiently for the last plate to be bolted into place. 

 

Seemingly confused by Tony’s irascible responses to its usual pre and post flight announcements, JARVIS fell into silence when Tony did his first loop over dark waters.

 

II

 

The _unfair_ thing about it all, Tony felt, was that when _he_ cheated on _Logan_ – if it could even be called that, given that their relationship, if anything, wasn’t particularly quantifiable – no matter how many showers he took afterwards, Logan always knew.  And worse, for a guy who tended to dress and look like lumberjack porn when Pepper wasn’t around, and whose only ride was a Harley, Logan-no-other-name seemed to enjoy silent warfare. 

 

Tony didn’t know how to react to cold shoulders.

 

There.

 

He admitted it.

 

Textbook narcissism was the problem, it seemed.  Pepper had told him that he was being an asshole, and hadn’t bothered to excuse her language.  Tony felt that was unfair.  Logan was now a live-in bodyguard-colleague-friend with benefits, and besides, Logan was cheating on him _as well_.  Pepper’s response to that wasn’t printable.

 

What was worse, Logan had seemingly endless patience.  The man was probably as long-lived as he purported to be; he didn’t get jealous, outbursts either slid off him or amused, and the only thing that seemed to consistently hold his undivided attention was his past.  Maybe that was why Tony had been drawn to Logan in the first place.  Birds of a fucking feather.

 

 _You’re quite mistaken_.  Emma Frost’s mental tones were as clipped and icy as her name.  _And you are an idiot._

Tony sighed.  One consultation had become two, and then it had become a bimonthly process conducted in the Westchester mansion’s surprisingly advanced medical lab.  If some of the equipment looked like they actually belonged to Reed Richards, Tony was sure he didn’t notice. 

 

 _The CAT scan machine you’re lying in right now, actually._ Emma informed him.  Tony groaned out aloud.  He didn’t like telepaths.  _That’s not true.  You actually seem to have at least twelve different fantasies involving telepaths of either gender.  Eight alone involving telekinetics._

 

 _Only twelve? I must be growing sober._ He glared sullenly up at the warm orange glow of the interior of the machine, heartily bored.  If not for the fact that the Blackbird had recently acquired Shi’ar technology, he wouldn’t be here, fragments near his heart be damned.

 

At least Xavier had the decency to keep his brain to himself.  _Oh no, he’s just far more subtle than I am._

 

 _Thank you, Miss Frost.  I really wasn’t interested in realizing that Xavier probably knows about my said twelve different telepath fantasies._ Tony wondered if he would do himself grave damage if he were to beat his forehead against the side of the machine.

 

Admittedly, Emma was keeping him more or less sane.  Tony couldn’t stand sitting still doing nothing, at least when sober, and the scans were torturous by himself.  Even sniping with Emma, or having long and terribly dry discussions about civil rights or whatever it was with Xavier were welcome after about fifteen minutes. 

 

 _Concussion, probably.  And he probably also knows about the various other fantasies you have regarding certain other types of superpowers, such as super-strength,_ Emma provided helpfully.  _You have a disgusting mind._

_Says you, seeing as you’re poking at it._   Tony viciously imagined Emma naked.

 

 _I’ve seen better,_ Emma returned loftily.  _And there’s actually a small mole under my right breast._

 

 _All right, put me out of my misery.  Tell me why I’m an idiot._   Tony decided wearily.  It was probably the only way to get rid of her.  Emma got bored just as easily as Tony did, when matters became mundane and she ran out of ways to deride his character.  _You’re going to tell me that Logan is in love with me and I’m utterly mistaken and an asshole.  Warm?_

_Logan’s mind can’t be read,_ Emma seemed amused.  _And I don’t think he loves like people do.  He probably can’t._

_Now that’s not very nice._

 

 _He’s moved everything out of his room and into your house.  Even all of the CDs.  And the bike._ The telepath sounded smug.  _That hasn’t happened before._

 

 _Probably would have happened eventually.  Girl Xavier creeps him the hell out._   Tony tried unsuccessfully to un-process that knowledge, which ignored logic to settle as a cold stone of guilt in the gut of his conscience.  Figured.

 

 _Also, you should see what he’s like when you’re out for the count or inside one of Reed Richard’s machines._  
 

 

 _In a corner, reading the paper? Or wait, fiddling with holopad JARVIS?_ _Or, let me guess-_

_You’re not quite as much of an asshole as you think you are,_ Emma observed thoughtfully, after a long pause, then added, absently, _Most of the time.  Watch your head.  Hank’s finished._

 

Tony sat up, a little dazed from the harsher lighting in the medical laboratory, and looked around.  As he’d thought, Logan was sitting in a corner, slouched in a spare chair, reading the papers.  _Hah! I win._

 

Emma’s only response was a low chuckle that echoed irritatingly in his mind, and Tony clenched his fingers into the edge of the machine, annoyed.  Hank was busying himself typing with surprising speed for a guy with giant furry blue clawed fingers, and Tony tried to read the scrolling data on the computer screen sideways.

 

“I’m trying lateral thinking,” Hank said, his speech with a faint lisp from his jaws, concentrating on the screen.  “Surgery will have a high risk of complications, and the slow blood poisoning you’re receiving from the coated shrapnel won’t help matters, nor the side effects that the arc reactor might have on robotic scalpels.”

 

“Think as laterally as you want, Doc.”

 

“One of our students can phase through walls.  Her name is Kitty Pryde.”

 

“Kitty _Pryde_? Seriously? That the name her parents really gave her?”

 

“Items she touches become intangible,” Hank ignored him.  “With Reed’s live hypersonar imaging she should be able to phase out the chunks of metal.”

 

“Could phase out chunks o’ his heart too,” Logan said, without looking up, “And ya know what happens if she phases through machinery.  Wouldn’t want to try that with the arc reactor.”

 

“Naturally she’ll have to practice.” Hank said dismissively.  “Kitty’s getting better at precision.”

 

“There’s a spare arc reactor to practice with?” Logan retorted.  “Kitty’s a good kid, but she gets distracted and she don’t work well when she’s stressed.  She ain’t one for heart surgery.  Think o’ somethin’ else, Hank.”

 

“I like the idea.” Tony disagreed.  “Actually, it’s a great idea.  If she can phase out the pieces, then that’s not even intrusive surgery.  And they’re not _that_ close to the reactor.”

 

“Ya want to gamble, go to Vegas, bub.”

 

“I can probably make a spare reactor, give or take a couple of weeks at my current schedule,” Tony told Hank, “If you promise that Reed will never get his hands on it.”

 

For someone that bulky, Logan could move _fast_. Even Hank flinched when Logan planted his big hands to either side of Tony’s hips and kissed him roughly, rumbling low in his throat when Tony shuddered and opened his mouth and whined for it like a bitch. 

 

He _was_ pathetic.

 

“I said no,” Logan said evenly, when Tony was busy gasping for air, his brain temporarily in malfunction, and stalked out of the lab.

 

 _I told you so_ , Emma informed him smugly. 

 

 _You’re a telepath.  Don’t you ever get tired of doing that?_ Tony rubbed at his eyes, even as Hank cleared his throat awkwardly and busied himself with something seemingly unrelated on another screen. 

 

So he had it on good proof that Logan _did_ care.  Pity it also made him feel like a scumbag in the process.  Guiltily, Tony hoped that he’d disposed of the scrawled phone number in lipstick that he’d left in the dark blue pinstripe Kiton suit.

 

 _Not really.  But you can buy me something nice by way of appreciation.  I rather like the new Manolo Blahnik alligator boots. The ones in white, if you please._   There was a pause.  _Also, you didn’t take out the phone number._

_Bitch._

_You’re welcome, sweetheart._

 

III

 

After a while, Hank had finally coaxed, nagged, and then outright strong-armed Tony onto a detox diet of pills that were actually making him feel better than he had since what felt like goddamned _forever_.  The dull ache that he’d gotten used to was gone, as was the occasional light-headedness, headaches and spaciness.  At this rate he probably wouldn’t need liquor anymore.  It was an uncomfortable thought.

 

Metal poisoning.  It was a rather, well, _ironic_ thing for him to suffer from, given what he liked to do in his free time.  It seemed that some enterprising terrorist had modified the Stark Industries equipment.  Either that or the consignment sent to the Middle East by Obadia hadn’t had the alloy makeup that Stark had approved.  Either way, the damage had been done.

 

This morning, Logan sat at the Avengers’ kitchen’s island and watched Tony count out the pills, his expression unreadable.  It was early enough that the sun hadn’t fully risen, but late enough that Captain America had already left for his morning jog around the city saving kittens or whatever the hell he did on days without Avengers emergencies.  The man didn’t seem to have an ‘off’ or ‘relax’ button.  It was crazy.

 

Then again, Tony’s current idea of a pastime was to get into an iron shell and break the speed of sound, so he wasn’t exactly well placed to criticize.

 

“Hank was telling me that the poisoning was a bit like getting smashed,” Tony told Logan, for a lack of anything else to fill up the silence.  “Being smashed _normally_ wouldn’t have made me think it was a great idea to suit up and duel the war machine suit in my own house.  Usually.”

 

Logan grunted, non-committal. 

 

“Yeah, you’re fun in the mornings.” Tony swallowed the pills, washed it down with coffee, and shambled towards the fridge to forage for something stronger.  “You know what I was thinking of last night? I thought, maybe, this insane Iron Man business, flying around like a superhero, battling giant robots and insects and phallic objects, maybe it’s a side-effect of the poisoning.  Maybe after I’m cured I’ll go back to being a cynical weapons dealer with little interest in the rest of the world outside of his ego.”

 

“Ya think too much.”

 

“I usually think less after sex,” Tony said hopefully, but Logan didn’t seem to hear it.  The mutant was reading Hank’s prescription, in the doctor’s militant scrawl.  “ _So_ ,” he added, a little put out by Logan’s instant dismissal, “I was thinking that since I’m not exactly dying from the metal bits, and the pills are keeping me feeling better, maybe we can leave them in there.”

 

When Logan looked up, his eyes narrowed, Tony continued, defensively, “I mean, what if I change back? What if I wake up after the surgery and I’m the _old_ Tony, the one who didn’t see a problem about designing missiles that can drive shrapnel through steel upon impact?”

 

“Oh _Tony_.” Pepper had to be taking ninja lessons from Natasha; Tony yelped as she suddenly hugged him tightly out of nowhere and nearly made him drop the cereal.  The hug was as swift as it was unexpected, with Pepper shooting Logan a quick glance to see if he objected, then adjusting her clothes and opening the folder in her hands.  “It won’t happen.”

 

“You don’t know that it won’t,” Tony pointed out, determined to hang on to his angst.  It felt like a good morning to wallow.  If anything, he’d be in the right frame of mind to handle his shareholders meeting afterwards. “Maybe I’ll get worse.  Maybe I’ll end up taking over SHIELD and, uh, registering everyone who can make sparkly lights or see through walls.  Or develop a _real_ drinking problem.  Or inject myself with experimental biotechnology.  End up as part of a secret society with magic gems.  Or marry Natasha.” He shuddered.  “She’ll clean me out.  She’s Russian.”

 

He could see Logan get off the bar stool and go round the island, but the unyielding arm dragging him close still came as a bit of a shock, and the harsh whisper of “Ya won’t” in his ear made him shudder and flush.  Logan patted him appreciatively on the ass and ambled off to pick up his hat from the couch.

 

“So,” Pepper said, her cheeks suspiciously rosy, “We’re due in the video conference room on the fifteenth floor in about ten minutes.”

 

“You said ‘about’.  You never say ‘about.” Tony clutched his cereal before him protectively, in case Clint or, hell, _Luke Cage_ decided to come and give him a motivational slap on the back. 

 

“Just eat your damn cereal, Tony.”

 

IV

 

Mariko was now heavily pregnant, and entering what Tony mentally termed the ‘minefield stage’, where the safest way to carry out a conversation was from the other end of the room and either behind someone or in the Iron Man suit.  Natasha was assigned to her almost full time, and as far as he could tell, their working relationship had gotten off to a rocky start that had ended in a mutual state of efficiency.  Just to be safe, he stood as close to Pepper as personal space allowed when he decided to drop by Floor 8.

 

Leaving Pepper to chatter with Mariko over the current state of their project to save orphaned children from malaria in South America or whatever it was Mariko did with her department’s share of Stark Industries dividends, Tony drew Natasha to a corner of the large room of cubicles staffed with volunteers.  Logan stood near the door, his hat drawn over his eyes, seemingly oblivious to everyone, his thumbs in his jeans pockets.

 

“So, nothing else lately?”

 

Natasha shook her head, looking faintly annoyed.  “Harada’s gone to ground and SHIELD is still looking for him.  We’ll find him.”

 

“That’s good.” Tony shot a cursory glance over the volunteers.  “But _this_ isn’t good security.  Anyone could get in.”

 

“All their backgrounds have checked out.”

 

He supposed that he could trust SHIELD to be thorough.  “How was the last doctor’s visit?”

 

“Dr. Blake said she and the baby are doing fine.” Natasha said.  “Fury’s very invested in their well-being.  If there’s even a hint of a problem, we’ll move her aboard the SHIELD carrier.  We’d have moved her already if she hadn’t been so insistent that she preferred this place.”

 

“Yeah, there has to be some reason why she prefers a twenty-four-seven butler service, tailored dinners from Michelin starred chefs, indoor spa-”

 

Natasha’s glare stopped the playful comment dead in its tracks.  “I am glad that you find this situation amusing, Mister Stark.”

 

“If you’re sure she’ll be better off in the carrier, then move her there,” Tony pointed out.  Humor didn’t often work well on Natasha.  “Seriously.”

 

“Let’s see _you_ try and talk her into it, Mister Stark.”

 

“Are you free on Thursday night?” Tony grinned.  He had long noticed that the best way to defuse Natasha’s murderous instinct was, oddly enough, to piss her off.  At least where _he_ was concerned.  Maybe because when she really wanted to break his nose, Natasha would remember that Tony was currently on the SHIELD A-list of Useful People. 

 

Natasha’s eyes narrowed, and then she stalked over to Logan, who glanced up instantly, wary.  He didn’t, however, move or even _react_ when she leaned over, kissed him hard on the mouth, then strode over to where Mariko and Pepper were clearly pretending that they hadn’t seen anything interesting for the last fifteen minutes.

 

Tony’s brain promptly stopped working, during which Logan philosophically wiped the lipstick off his mouth onto the back of his hand and pulled the rim of his hat back down.

 

Trying to pull Logan anywhere didn’t usually work unless he was in the Iron Man suit, but Logan frowned at him and allowed himself to be frogmarched out of the room to the express lifts.  “Stark?”

 

“Goddamn it, for the fucking _hundredth_ time, it’s _Tony_ ,” Tony snapped, indecipherably furious as he jammed the button for the Avengers’ private floor, then backed up against Logan and kissed him roughly, all angry tongues and teeth.  Somehow, they made it to the nearest bedroom (a guest room, thank God) without traumatizing anyone, and then Logan pulled off Tony’s tie, grabbed both his wrists, and bound him to the bedframe at the foot of the bed.

 

Tony swore, jerking at the silk, then yelped and flinched instead when Logan flipped him onto his back and began to unbutton his shirt, sinking teeth too high on his neck for the collar to hide once the arc reactor was revealed, sucking hard until Tony whimpered and bucked against the muscular thigh shoved between his legs, begging, _yes_ please _faster-_

 

“This is what I want to do to ya everytime ya come back smellin’ like someone else,” Logan informed him in a low, liquid snarl that made his toes curl and his cock twitch. 

 

“Why don’t you?” Tony was trying not to think too hard about how he was pleading, breathless, squirming as Logan held him down with a hand on his stomach and undid Tony’s belt, slow and too fucking unhurried.

 

“It’ll encourage ya.” Logan got the belt off – yes! – and then stroked slowly down the crease of Tony’s dress pants to his right shoe.  “So it won’t work until ya know what it feels like.”

 

Right shoe, left shoe, and Tony was ready to scream from impatience.  Logan smirked at him and dragged down his pants and underwear, kissing him when Tony made an impatient noise and squirmed until he had his legs up against Logan’s narrow hips.  The man was still wearing his _jeans_.  “Logan,” Tony choked,  “Christ, come _on_.”

 

Logan reared up, reaching over to look cursorily in the side drawers as if he didn’t expect to find anything, then snorted and located lube and a condom on the lowest drawer.  “Emergencies,” Tony suggested brightly, then jerked at the tie again when Logan merely set his finds next to Tony’s ribs.  “Logan!”

 

“We’ll be doin’ things different,” Logan purred, against his ear.  “Slow.”

 

“You don’t do slow.” What Tony actually wanted to say was ‘ _Please_ don’t do this slow’, and he swallowed hard.  “Just fuck me already.  Please?”

 

“Eventually.” Logan bit down on his shoulder, then against his flank, nearly up under his arm, and then up against his left nipple, and Tony was fairly sure he was about to lose his mind.  He was shaking uncontrollably by the time Logan finally slicked up his fingers and breached him.

 

Tony woke up sore and sated to the sound of his smartphone beeping mutinously and Logan sitting beside him, shirtless, the holopad on a dry spot on the bed.  A stained, grainy photograph of a squad, crouched before the camera, with a scrawled caption in a leaky pen was set in wide focus.

 

“Seems my name was James,” Logan said, slowly, as though he was tasting the word on his tongue.  “ ‘James H.’.”  

 

 _And your buddy with his arm around your shoulders is the late Sabertooth, a.k.a. Victor Creed_ , Tony wanted to point out, regarding the man crouched beside Logan in the picture, but he said nothing, having already extensively read Logan’s SHIELD file (classified).   Logan switched off the holopad and shoved it off the bed; Tony winced at the _clunk_ it made against the polished wood, and then hissed and arched as Logan rolled on top of him and took his mouth.

 

“Can’t,” Tony gasped, as thick fingers groped down, between his legs, then “Fuck, _yes_ ,” when the first fingers pushed into slick flesh, too much, still too soon, too raw.  Walking was overrated anyway.

 

V

 

It figured that a Japanese gangster-businessman _wouldn’t_ , in actual fact, dress up in something ridiculous and/or build giant robots to attack him.  The driveby sniper when he’d been attending the charity ribbon-clipping PR exercise at the new Stark Industries subsidized hospital for kids (or whatever Mariko had persuaded him to spend on) had only led to a bruised elbow when Logan had shoved him aside.  The gunmen trying to trigger a hostage situation in Stark Tower had run into Clint popping by to pick up his gym gear.

 

Car bombing the Lamborghini Reventon however, was war.  Tony watched it burn mournfully from a safe distance, nursing minor burns up his left arm and scrapes from being blown off his feet onto the asphalt from the explosion.

 

“I loved that car.”

 

Captain America made a sympathetic noise that sounded suspiciously insincere.  “You can get another one.”

 

“You don’t understand.  That was _my_ car.  And it was a custom job,” Tony added, sorrowfully.

 

“You have a lot of cars.”

 

“You’re fucking terrible at sympathy.”

 

“You’re alive with almost minor injuries,” Cap pointed out mildly.  “You’re lucky that the bomb was triggered too early.”

 

“Only because Logan smelled something.”

 

“In fact, you wouldn’t have been hurt at _all_ if you hadn’t insisted on trying to get the bomb out from next to the engine.”

 

“I just needed to switch a couple of the wires.  Luke could have waited thirty _seconds._ ” Tony muttered, then sighed loudly.  “At least it wasn’t the Bugatti.”  He paused, as a horrible thought struck him.  “I should go home and check the Bugatti.  And the Ferrari Enzo.  And the McLaren.”

 

“You have a lot of cars,” Captain America repeated, with a genial, almost beautific smile as he watched the car fire get put out by late arrival firefighters.  Tony was about to make a snide comment about schadenfreude and the American Way when he realized that Cap was actually watching Logan approach them.  All the burns had already healed, and the charred clothes added to the _Lost_ survivor look.

 

“How come the hair grows back?” Tony asked, just as Logan reached them both and swung a punch.

 

Knowing that Logan clearly pulled it didn’t help.  Tony staggered back against the sleek metal S of his Tower, clutching at his jaw.  “What the _hell_ -” Logan kissed him, hard, and Tony’s sense of survival picked out the sound of a camera’s frantic clicking even as the rest of him leaned up into it.  Cap chuckled, and wandered off, presumably to spread the American Way someplace more deserving.

 

In the corner of his eye, Tony saw Clint confiscate the photographer’s camera, but the damage had already been done.  Dizzily imagining a slew of the evening paper’s headlines – STARK RAVING MUTANT ROMANCE, perhaps, BRAIN AND BEAST, or BILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY’S LETHAL CONQUEST even – Tony could only exhale, dazed, as Logan pulled back and kissed him on the forehead, then over his eyes.

 

“Don’t fuckin’ do that again.”

 

This felt almost as good as when he came out as the Iron Man, actually.  Tony grinned, put his hands on Logan’s bared shoulders, and leaned forward.  “How about ‘ya’ make me, ‘bub’.”

 

Logan’s eyes narrowed dangerously (hot!) but at that point, Pepper arrived, emanating feminine fury.  “ _Tony…_ ”

 

“I had it all under control,” Tony protested, “Also, if _you_ hit me, I won’t be kissing you.  Probably.”

 

“Let’s take this inside, _Mister_ Stark,” Pepper said, with a wintry smile, and Tony winced.

 

“Et tu, Miss Potts?”

 

“ _Inside_ , Tony.  I think we’ve given the tabloids enough to talk about today.” Pepper shot Logan’s protective arm around Tony’s waist a pointed stare.  “Captain America is calling an Avengers meeting.”

 

“Over _Harada_?” Tony groaned.  “It’s not _their_ problem.  Tell Cap I’ll be there in spirit.  I’m going home to check on my Bugatti.”

 

“You don’t actually love your cars that much, Tony.  If you did, you wouldn’t practice flying in the same room as they are.  If you go home, all that’d happen is that you’ll get into an Iron Man suit and go out looking for trouble.  You’re attending the meeting, Tony.  _I’m_ attending the meeting.”

 

Pepper knew him too well.  “I can get into a suit in the Tower.”

 

“You gave me the overrides to the one in the Tower.”

 

Damn.  “Fine.”  JARVIS was almost finished tracking down the paper trail, anyway.

 

VI

 

As it turned out, there _were_ ludicrous silver samurai armor _and_ evil giant robots in the equation after all, or perhaps Harada was just becoming desperate.  In any regard, much to Logan’s disgust, Harada himself disappeared during the fiasco, somehow, and the trail ran cold at a seaplane dock. 

 

Tony picked up one of the strewn robot helms, Harada already forgotten.  Christmas had come early in the form of unknown tachyon field technology.

 

VII

 

“Strange?”

 

“Don’t trust magic.”

 

“Namor might have-”

 

“ _Underwater_?”

 

“Well then, Reed Richards.”

 

“Doesn’t smell right.”

 

Tony decided to leave them to it, pulling on his shirt and walking off to find the Blackbird.  He found a slim, gorgeous brunette in a bright red shirt and a black tube skirt, beside a tall young man with a shock of silver hair.  Both of them had been talking quietly beside the jet, and looked up at him with eerie synchronicity, silent.

 

“Hi,” Tony flashed a smile.  “I haven’t seen you guys around here before.”

 

The man tugged gently at the brunette’s elbow, but she ignored him, looking him over curiously.  “You’re Tony Stark.” She had an exotic, Eastern European accent that Tony would have found somewhat more interesting than usual if Logan wasn’t in the same building.

 

“And I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage…?”

 

“Wanda,” the man whispered insistently, tugging again, but she smiled, all elegant mystery as she reached out and touched his shoulder.

 

VIII

 

The big old mansion had been shored up, extended, and converted into an elementary school.  Tony sat in the rented car while Logan poked around the closed building, hoping they didn’t look like kidnappers or worse in the late evening on the edge of a town in Alberta. It was a sullen looking place, even under the thick dusting of snow, and Tony was beginning to freeze gently in the halfhearted heating.  Logan had said that all of his cars were too noticeable, and for some reason Tony had thought that eminently reasonable.

 

Around when it was cold enough that the smartphone refused to recognize his fingers as human, Logan let himself back into the car.  “We’re leavin’.”

 

“Found anything?” Tony asked, as Logan turned the car around.

 

“No.” Logan said, too dark for his eyes to be visible.  “Just a lot o’ old ghosts that I don’t remember.”

 

“Ah.” Tony couldn’t immediately think of anything to say.

 

“Ya didn’t need to come.”

 

“Weren’t we celebrating the end of the recession _and_ my slowly stabilizing metal poisoning with a real holiday?”  Logan snorted, even as they cruised onto the highway. 

 

“JARVIS coughed up the picture a coupl’a days ago,” Logan shrugged.  “Ya didn’t have to come.”

 

“And miss spending the New Year’s freezing to death with you in a beat up old Ford in Canada? Never.” Tony had actually found the picture a week before _that_ and had proceeded to engineer the timing, but thankfully, Logan probably couldn’t smell smugness. 

 

Logan’s lip curved up, barely noticeable.  “Spoiled.”

 

“Just try and make it to some form of civilisation without hitting a moose or something.” Tony retorted, and shivered as a big hand splayed against the back of his neck, impossibly warm.  His breath hitched as Logan squeezed gently, rubbed, then smirked at him before turning his eyes back to the road.  “Or, I guess, anywhere warm and acceptable.”

 

“Ya have a week off,” Logan told him, “And we’ll be spendin’ it at a place I have.”

 

A _week!_ Tony’s libido perked up, even in the chill through the car windows.  “Log cabin?”

 

“Log cabin.”

 

“Electricity and piped water?”

 

Logan scratched at his chin.  “Not sure.”

 

“Good God.” Tony frowned, about to suggest that they try the Fairmont Palliser in Calgary instead, and was met with a swift, bruising kiss, that slanted up hard against his mouth, promising more.  The road ahead stretched silent, infinite. 

 

-fin… ;o-

 


End file.
